What exactly do you think you are going to prove?

Published July 22nd, 2011 by Bobby Henderson

What exactly do you think you are going to prove? it’s just disrespectful to other human beings faiths and beliefs, and im sure u of all people should know u can’t put any sense into say a devout christian. Honestly, what your doing is the equivalant of making a rude, sarcastic joke to a child that doesn’t understand humor. u cant tell a christian thats been raised from birth to believe that there’s a magic man in the clouds that he’s wrong. you’ll just get what uve been getting, hate mail, and death threats. God is the equivalant of santa exept the child is never told he isn’t real until it’s to late. and u think your doing a good thing by making up this pastafarian crap to prove how absurd the idea of god is. what i don’t think u understand is that u cant argue with idiots about this stuff as most christians are dont know a thing about science.(I apoligize to all respectable christian scientists). as an athiest, im disgusted what youre doing. like making fun of christians being killed by somali’s, and u quoting, "apparently they thought there god could give them safe passage"(yes ive read ur website). really, did it ever, or does it ever occur to you that these people are actually human being’s with family’s and feeling’s, and just because they think the world was created differantly than u, u have to mock them… that’s kind of a dick move. your being no better than they are(religious people) by making fun of and disrespecting other people just ’cause they think differantly than u. oh wait u are religous, u worship a flying spaggetti monster. which means i have the right to ridicule u on how stupid your dumbfuck religion is(oh may the great pasta diety forgive me for my sin) and dont deny that u worship the all mighty pasta king, because your the leader of the church. with the true words of your religion written on a piece of paper. it’s ironic that u, by trying to prove how bad religion is. go about it by u yourself inbodying everything that is wrong with human beliefs. u are everything that is wrong with athiesm. u go around acting all superior and pompus, like u know better than everyone else and tell them why there wrong mockingly. the world would be a better place if u took all your "followers" (butt pirates) got on a pirate ship and ate spaggetti until you all died of overeating.have u ever heard the term live and let live? and i love it how u post all the hate mail u get on a your page to be ridiculed by your cronies( who by the way need to get of the internet and do something productive)yes we all the the bible huggars are gonna say dumb stuff because they’re uneducated. but that doesn’t mean u have to be immature and make fun of there faults so just lay off. even though this message sounds hostile just know i agree with what your’e trying to do (i think) educating people, i just wholly disagree with how u are going about it.

-David

A short response from Bobby:

It’s not our intention to mock or offend anyone. But I realize people sometimes feel mocked or offended.

It might be fair to say that we’re disrespectful. I would agree that most Pastafarians don’t respect the notion that religion should sit on a pedestal. We don’t think that because an action is explained in the context of religion it is exempt from the scrutiny it otherwise would have been subjected to. Religion is not a free pass for crazy ideas and crazy actions.

I would agree that it’s not our place to pass judgment on those who see the world through a lens of religion. But neither is it our place to ignore when personal belief becomes public action. We can accept that some choose to teach their kids the earth is 6000 years old and that dinosaurs are a myth. But if they push for those ideas to be taught in our schools, it’s no longer a question of respecting personal belief.

The idea that rational minded people must be anti-religion is a wrong one, I think. If we must draw a line to divide ourselves, I’d prefer the line be positioned between reasonable and unreasonable people, rather than religious and non-religious people.

It’s one thing to see the world through a lens, and another thing to act as if it’s the only lens that can exist.

I believe there is no group more tolerant of other religious and nonreligious groups than Pastafarians, without question. The death of the Christian sailors by pirates was a sad thing for everyone who heard of it, I’m sure. My hope is that it doesn’t happen again. The hard question is: will criticizing the decision to venture into dangerous areas on the basis of faith help avoid a similar situation in the future? I don’t know the answer. But I wonder how many of their friends and family wish they had shaken them and said this is a bad idea, don’t do this. This is one of the hard questions – this line between respect and concern.

971 Responses to “What exactly do you think you are going to prove?”

I find irony in that the David ridicules Pastafarians for ridiculing religions. Also ironic is that he claims Christians to be of lower intelligence while he fails to put a Y and an O before his Us and fails to capitalize his Is.

It is certainly surprising that he took so much time to write a long rant but was too damn lazy to write (as you point out) “you” in full.
Just skimming through the text I noticed that he misspelled :
apologise (or apologize if you prefer), differently, atheist , religious, their, embodying, pompous and huggers.

If we’re on that level, what about the rules for placing apostrophes being totally ignored. “somali’s”: somalis’ what? Going triple on it too : “being’s with family’s and feeling’s”. that’s possessives, not plurals. Mind, that multiple mistake is well representative of the guy’s mind orientation: his is only one thought. And not very far-stretching at that : that poor David is obviously 1) talking to his own mirror, 2) without even looking at it, as in -> 1) “ever heard the term live and let live”; -> 2) “need to get of the internet”, which means he unconsciously thinks that he shld get something of the internet site that he’s onto (and so should you, David, and so should you). But he isn’t even trying to learn from his own lapsus. The pompus could well relate to the belgian pampus sea fort, unless his downside thinks he needs pampers – both may be right. What a clever unconscious that David’s got, and how stupid of him not to listen to it at all. Man, that bloke looks like a serious bore.

As a pastafarian I do not believe we ridicule other religions. I agree we may be disrespectful of them, but that is also the history of religions. Galileo, Copernicus, Martin Luther, etc., were disrespectful of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Just because we have a light hearted view of the afterlife does not mean we are no more relevant. Church is community, I respect that……but read the hate mail, Pastafarians are ridiculed and worst.

You claim to be an atheist, yet are bothered by our take on religion. Why…God to you does not exist. Our mere existence bothers the so called “devout” We do not proselytize, we do not go door to door, we do not send missionaries to 3rd world countries….well sometimes pirates with candy. I do agree that an afterlife should be more than beer and strippers, also more than sitting on a cloud with a harp. If we were one on one we could (maybe) have a very deep philosophical discussion on what goes on after death.

Some more important questions…..Why are some churches tax exempt in a country that supposedly sate and church separated? Why are clergy exempt from social security taxes? The local reverend in a town of 10,000 is most likely not gonna feel the bite.

As for religions…Some Christians will chuckle, some will be offended…well if your eye offends thee…………Islam probably too, especially the radical part, where non believers………..ok enough of the hate

Not sure about Buddhism or Hinduism with their pantheon of Gods. Could the FSM fall into that fold? Hmmmm, maybe with the guidance of the noodly one a path will be found and embraced by a larger faction of the religious community.